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> Before the assassination of King ignited days of civil unrest, signals intelligence used computers to help in the government effort to defame King and undermi
by perfmode 6y ago
> Before the assassination of King ignited days of civil unrest, signals intelligence used computers to help in the government effort to defame King and undermine his cause. Large organizations have always invested in machines like Stretch because information is often the most effective weapon in a conflict.
This is a reminder for me to be mindful of how my beliefs and behaviors as an engineer are inextricably connected to questions of justice, civil rights, and human dignity.
i am grateful that this article has been written and shared here, so that i might be illumined.
- 01100011 6y agoSure, but you often don't know the connections. Working on deep learning, for instance, can seem pretty innocuous, but it most definitely has applications in propaganda, warfare, surveillance, etc. I know where I work, there is no mention of our military customers, only other branches of the government, despite the military buying a lot of our tech. I think it's intentional so we don't discourage younger engineers from contributing.
- perfmode 6y agoIt is true. One can never know. This is a reminder not to place ego-value in software work, to keep a small footprint, to shed identifications, and surrender into that deeper Truth of our being. Acknowledging the inevitability of fallibility, it becomes important to adopt a posture such that once we become aware of a deeper truth, we stop living out what becomes apparent as delusion.